Going Rogue: An American Life (54 page)

Going Rogue

Todd 70 feet thcough the ait,

he landed with a thud and the

ccack of bone. Scott raced co rhe crash sire to see if his parrner was still alive. Todd hobbled ro Scott’s sled, and they soldiered on ro the next stop before returning to fix Todd’s sled. They rested up at the Hunningron family’s house and then kept riding 400 miles to an honocable fourth-place finish in Faitbanks.

After the cace, we visited a health clinic, where Todd’s bcoken right arm was casted. He kept it inside his jacket sleeve during that night’s award ceremony. Back home, he used a pair of heavy shears to cut the cast

and handed it to Piper for playing dress-up.

I asked if he was still in pain after cacing with the bcoken bone.

“Nope, just still mad about the oil drum.” I joked, “Dang oil companies. Still haunting us:’

For the second consecutive year, after the cace we boarded an airplane and traveled to the White House for the National Governors Association meeting, where Todd had another tea party with Lauca Bush and the governors’ wives.

These motorheads are revered up North, but nothing like our other celebrities-those whom we lazier folk vicariously live thcough: our Iditarod mushers. Both the Icon Dog and Iditarod caces pass through rueal Native villages, where the kids trear cacers like NBA stars, asking for autogcaphs and cheering on the teams of a dozen or more dogs.

The

Tcail Sled Dog Race is another uniquely Alaskan

event that puts us on the map. It started after a desperate, harcowing 1925 diphtheria setum run ro Nome and was first known as the Great Race of Mercy because diphtheria was rampant and the serum cure had to be delivered by sled dogs from the port of Seward to victims in the far and frigid North. The lead dog’s name was Balto. There’s a statue in New York’s Central Park honoring the hecoic canine.

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Aftet the long-shot racet Libby Riddles became the first woman to win in 1985, Susan Butcher nabbed four victories, and our bumper stickers boasted, ALASKA! WHERE MEN ARE MEN AND WOMEN

WIN THE IDITAROD! Martin Buser also won four times. In fact, this charismatic, always-smiling guy from Switzerland became the first international winner in 1992 and has set the course record for the 1,049-mile race across the Last Frontier in a blistering eight days, twenty-two hours. Martin appreciates America more than most people born and bred here. He became a naturalized citizen and was a spokesperson for the individual freedom

and opportunities we enjoy and can’t take for granted. We were honored that Martin joined us on the campaign trail to spread that patriotic message across the country.

The tradition is for the governor to call the Iditarod winner, no matter what time he Ot she crosses under the famed burled arch on Front Street in Nome. My first year in. office I called the winner, Lance Mackey, to congratulate him. He was in his midthirties, a throat cancer survivor, a lifelong Alaskan, and an·

amazing athlete with a world-class team of dogs. His lead dog’s name was Larry. My call would be broadcast around the world, so I made sure everything was set up from the mansion as I watched on live TV while a reporter handed Lance the phone. With high emotions and very little sleep exuded relief

and honor when he took his first call from the governor. “Hey!

How ya doing, sir?”

There was just a tiny bit of a hush. The reporter mumbled,

“Um, our governor’s a woman.” Lance perked up. “Oh, yeah!

Right! Yeah, it’s Murkowski, I met her before! Hi there!” Oh, I fell in love with that musher and his lead dog, Larry, right then and there.

“Lance, can you hear me? You just made this state very, very proud!”

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Going Rogue

The next day at a press conference, Bill McAllister from KTUU

asked me just how embarrassing
was
that international momenr?

”Are you kidding?!” I asked Bill. “More power ro him! Good he’s nor a

like him even more now.”

Bill pointed out that his canines, with names like Hobo, Lippy, and Fudge, were more important ro mushers than any politician’s name. The mushers and the veterinarians on the trail loved and cared for. their animals so much they’d practically lay down their lives for the dogs.

By the second year, with another Mackey victory to celebrate, I the call again, this time at 2:46 a.m., ro tell the musher he

·was an inspiration to all of us. Lance was just as proud, and I was JUSt as prepared to be humbled.

A reporter teased him this time, “Now, Lance, remember who this is this time!”

“Got it, got it,” he said. Then he picked up the phone, said

“Hello” with a grin, and rold the world he couldn’t forget the governor’s name this go-round. He’d named one of his dogs

“Sarah.”

Before we knew it, I was seven months along. I hadn’t put on a lot of weight and with winter clothes and a few cleverly draped scarves, no one saw my girth or suspected I was pregnant. A blazer was getting tight enough that Willow looked at me one day and said, tactfully, “Geez, Mom, you’re porking up!”

“Oh, hush,” I said. “Now pass me rhe Chocolate,

with peanut butter.”

I hadn’t quire finished writing my letter about Trig. But at that poine in March we shared the news with family and a few close friends that I was pregnant. The kids, of course, were overjoyed. Shorrly after rhat, we decided to go public. The city of Kodiak

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PALIN

was putting on a big teception in Juneau for legislatots to celebtate theit promising seafood industty. This year, I couldn’t wait to get there-I was starving for king crab and scallops. Todd and I decided to get the baby announcement out there, so I called a few reporters near my Capitol office. KTUU’s Bill McAllister, AP reporter Steve Quinn, and Wesley Loy from the
Anchorage Daily News
would be there in a minute, they said. I had a great relationship with those guys. We spoke on a regular basis and we had each other’s personal cell phone numbers. This rime, I asked them to meet Todd, Piper, and me in my office lobby before the receprion, and rhen we’d all walk over to the spread together.